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How ailing bodies hasten the progress of Alzheimer's
HERE'S another reason to be fit and healthy. Staying free of "lifestyle diseases" and infections could put the brakes on Alzheimer's.
The advice comes from teams that have pieced together how these bodily ailments create inflammation that ultimately spills over into the brain, sending its immune cells into a hyperactive, destructive state.
"The idea is simple: monitoring and prompt treatment [of inflammation] could prevent the decline from Alzheimer's," said Hugh Perry of the University of Southampton, UK, as he presented the research at the Alzheimer's Research UK annual meeting in Oxford last month.
As well as revealing step by step how disease and infection can aggravate and accelerate the early stages of Alzheimer's, Perry and his colleague Clive Holmes have begun a pioneering trial in 40 people to see if a drug that acts to dampen inflammation in the body can help delay the progress of the brain disease. Etanercept is already prescribed to people with rheumatoid arthritis, and works by sponging up a molecule that aggravates inflammation.
According to Alzheimer's Disease International, 44 million people globally have dementia, of which Alzheimer's is the most common type. The beginnings of the disease are characterised by the appearance in the brain of plaques of amyloid proteins and tangles of tau proteins. They prompt the brain's native immune cells, the microglia, to multiply in a bid to dispose of the troublesome new debris.
The downside of this heightened state is that it also makes the microglia unusually sensitive to any other signs of trouble – for example, signals sent to the brain as a result of bodily inflammation. This stirs up the microglia even further, tipping them into a hyperactive state in which they attack healthy neurons, boosting the progression of Alzheimer's.
Now Perry and Holmes have built up a detailed picture of how this happens through experiments in mice with prion disease, a model of neurodegeneration. They show that as the disease develops, two inflammatory molecules produced in the brain – proteins called interleukin 34 and colony-stimulating factor-1 – activate the microglia.
Other inflammatory molecules that provoke the microglia are made by the white blood cells that gobble up bacteria and other sources of infection in the body. These cells are overactive in conditions of chronic inflammation such as diabetes, atherosclerosis and obesity.
Once these alarm signals reach the surfaces of blood vessels lining the brain, the microglia produce a neurotoxic molecule called interleukin-1 beta. This is followed by a mass die-off of neurons and a lasting decline in memory and other cognitive abilities (Nature Reviews Neurology, doi.org/sc8).
Separate work by Colm Cunningham and his colleagues at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland has shown that interleukin-1 beta is a likely neuron-killing culprit, along with other inflammatory molecules called prostaglandins (Journal of Neuroscience, doi.org/sdr). They have also shown that taking a type of anti-inflammatory drug can prevent the cognitive decline in mice produced by this cascade of inflammatory events.
The results of Perry and Holmes's human trial of etanercept – also an anti-inflammatory – are expected later this year. The hope is that the drug will delay the progression of Alzheimer's. If it is found to, the results will bolster the theory that combating infection and chronic inflammation in the body is an effective strategy to keep Alzheimer's at bay.
It's an attractive theory because it implies that the disease could be slowed with drugs that work outside the brain. Recent research has focused on combating the plaques and tangles in the brain, with disappointing results. "They are clearly not irrelevant, but patients continue to get worse even if the plaques are cleared," says Cunningham.
The inflammation theory is also making sense to other teams. "We're already looking at the role of microglia as a causal factor linking diabetes to Alzheimer's," says Ewan McNay of the University at Albany in New York.
So can people help themselves steer clear of Alzheimer's by adopting lifestyles that avoid inflammatory disease? "We know that exercise and a healthy diet that avoids obesity and diabetes are sensible strategies for other aspects of our health. Emerging data suggest this will also slow brain decline," says Cunningham. "Actively treating bodily inflammation in middle age and beyond may lessen the effects of these conditions on the brain's decline in old age."
Source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229662.600-how-ailing-bodies-hasten-the-progress-of-alzheimers.html#.U14CZfl_tPI
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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